


Dreaming of an Easy Waking Up

by ryry_peaches



Series: Missing Conversations From the Creek [6]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s06e12 The Pitch, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryry_peaches/pseuds/ryry_peaches
Summary: Patrick and David have been misunderstanding each other, and they finally hash out all their anger and insecurities.-Patrick just stands with his back to the door, and he looks sosadthat David doesn't know what to do — he only has a vague idea of why Patrick is angry, or sad, or — whatever he is; David doesn't have enough context to tell.  He looks at David, and they're standing far enough apart that he doesn't have to look up to look David in the eye. "I'm not going to New York, David." His voice is thick in the way it only gets when he's upset.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Missing Conversations From the Creek [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604422
Comments: 16
Kudos: 271





	Dreaming of an Easy Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Don't Take the Money by the Bleachers ft Lorde.

"I'm coming with you," David says, when Patrick quietly announces that it's about time that he head home, and Patrick neither argues nor agrees, just quietly waits for David to buckle up before he pulls out of the motel parking lot.

David drums his fingers against his own thigh and chances glance after nervous glance at Patrick. Patrick, who is quiet, which isn't exactly uncharacteristic, but this silence feels charged, heavy, ripe with the things that need to be said. David isn't sure how to start, and he's definitely sure he doesn't want to have a conversation this loaded in the car.

The silence is like walls pushing in, and by the time he's following Patrick into the apartment and locking the door behind them, he can feel it on his chest, his face, his back, the stress making him ache. "So," he says, turning awkwardly to drop his wallet and keys on the counter.

Patrick just stands with his back to the door, and he looks so _sad_ that David doesn't know what to do — he only has a vague idea of why Patrick is angry, or sad, or — whatever he is; David doesn't have enough context to tell. He looks at David, and they're standing far enough apart that he doesn't have to look up to look David in the eye. "I'm not going to New York, David." His voice is thick in the way it only gets when he's upset.

David takes a shaky breath. "O-okay," he says on the exhale, and hates how shaky that is, too.

"Okay?" Patrick raises his eyebrows. "I think we need to talk about this." There's impatience there, which David is intimately familiar with in every context from teasing to sexy to angry. He has a natural tendency to push Patrick right to his limit without even trying.

"I don't — we won't go to New York."

Patrick freezes, shakes his head. "It's that easy?"

David shakes his head back, because Patrick is being _confusing_ and _tense._ "Yeah."

"David, today you walked into the store with half a muffin and told me that _we_ would be _moving to New York,_ without even asking, so I'm given to believe you kind of _planned_ to move to New York." And there it is, the length of his patience snapping like a rubber band. Patrick is so stereotypically Canadian with his anger; someone who didn't know him — didn't love him — the way David does wouldn't be able to tell that he's pissed. And now David gets why.

"Patrick, oh my God," he says, laughing, _relieved,_ and Patrick opens his mouth, so David rushes to cut him off. "Oh my God, I'm so fucking sorry. No. Patrick. I didn't —" He takes a deep breath because laughing gave him some kind of weird anxiety-related head rush, and he's having trouble focusing. "Patrick, I was being very flighty and dramatic when I came in earlier. I went home to pick up my keys, and Alexis was shopping for apartments, and she just _said_ she expected us to move in with her, and I got very overwhelmed, and just like wrapped up in this whole…hypothetical of us branching the store in New York and living in a two-bedroom with my sister, and now that I'm saying this all out loud, it actually sounds very bleak, but I don't want, like, my entire family and my best friend to leave me here alone." He takes another deep breath.

Patrick is watching him with his eyes wide and his arms crossed. "Mhmm," he says, not looking significantly less pissed than he has the whole time.

"Okay, obviously not _alone,_ but you're not —" David sighs, sketching his hands across the empty air. "I love you. But you can't play the same role as my family or Stevie. I would never ask you to do that."

Patrick tilts his head, and makes a ridiculous production of uncrossing his arms and shoving his entire hands into his pockets. "So you _weren't_ ordering me to come to New York with you, this morning?"

David purses his lips. "Mm. There _was_ a time when I was absolutely controlling and self-absorbed and crazy enough to just expect someone to move to New York with me —"

"That's not a hypothetical, David. You did exactly that to Stevie." Patrick laughs, barking, incredulous, and David cringes.

"Okay, yes, so I have grown since that incident? And I've learned a lot, and — and honestly, Patrick, do you think I'm that selfish?" David pulls back — Patrick is still halfway across the room, pulling back is basically a symbolic gesture — as the question spills unbidden from his lips.

Patrick looks — not caught out, which is good. Not completely taken aback, either, which is less good. "No?" He says it like a question, and David grinds his teeth. "David, of course not. You've gotten carried away a few times, recently. The photoshoot —"

"I thought we were okay about that." David is working very hard to _not_ shout. "We talked about that. A lot!"

"I know!" Patrick rakes his teeth over his lip. "And we _are_ okay. Right?"

"I think so!" David tilts his chin, his defensive tell. "I don't — I'm sorry," he says for the third time, because it seems right. "I'm sorry that I wasn't clear, that I got so wrapped up in Alexis and Stevie and my parents, but I — I kind of can't believe you thought I would just make a decision like that for us!"

Patrick huffs, steps closer. "Don't turn this around on me," he says quietly. "Like you haven't been just doing what you want and expecting me to come along for the ride since we got engaged."

David huffs back. "I don't know where this is coming from! You told me that you _wanted_ me to take the reins on wedding planning, and yeah, I've gone overboard a _couple_ times, but there is a huge difference between making an executive decision regarding floral arrangements and making one about our relationship!"

"I don't know what we're doing here!" Patrick bites back, bitter and tired.

David turns his head and bites his lip and can't help asking, he's so scared: "Do you not want to get married anymore?"

"What?" And that's good, how shocked Patrick is, not like David gut-punched him. Good because it means that he hasn't thought it, didn't expect it. "David, do you —"

"No!" Patrick slumps, halfway to bending over, jaw actually dropped, just gaping at David. "No, I mean, yes, I want to marry you." David tangles his hand in his hair, trying to dispel his own panic.

"Well, good!" Patrick laughs, a hysterical single syllable. "Fuck, David!"

David scrubs his hands over his face, hiding in them. "Oh my God, I'm going to destroy our marriage by sticking my foot in my mouth."

"David," Patrick says again, slumping backwards against the door and scrubbing a huge hand over his own face. "Jesus. Fuck."

"Okay, I am — I just keep throwing things at you today, and I should — I should go. I should go back to the motel," David babbles. He's never seen Patrick fall apart like this before; even when he came out (was outed) he barely cracked. "I'll just…" He approaches Patrick and hesitates, flapping his hands nervously.

"David, no, are you kidding?" Patrick looks up at him, big brown shiny sad eyes, and David hesitates some more, flaps some more. "Don't go."

David takes the fingertips of one hand in the other, stilling himself. "Are you sure?"

Patrick nods, looking wrecked in a horrible way, and David did this to him. It doesn't even matter that he didn't mean to. He vows silently to himself to be more careful with his words when he's excited from now on. "David, can you please just…can you just give me a hug?"

God, Patrick will be the death of him. "Oh, of course." He normally wraps his arms around Patrick's neck, but Patrick is sagging so much that he ducks down and wraps his arms around him under the arms, presses his hands to his back and holds him up. "I'm so sorry, Patrick," he says softly.

Patrick presses his forehead against David's neck. "Stop apologizing," he whispers. "This is…I've had a really rough day, but it isn't your fault."

"Okay," David says, not sure if he should double down because it _is_ and he should take responsibility, but should he really be arguing with Patrick when he's this upset?

"I'm sorry I got mad," Patrick mumbles into David's shoulder. He's basically dead weight in David's arms at this point, and David decides that if he can carry this man up a mountain, he can drag him to the couch. So he pulls away a little, situating one arm across Patrick's back.

"Let's sit down, okay?" Patrick puts one foot in front of the other, at least, and lets David maneuver him to the couch, slumping on it and dropping his head into his hands, elbows on his knees. "Okay," David says, fluttering his hands over Patrick. "I'm going to go make you a nice cup of tea, okay? Are you okay here?"

"I'm _fine,_ David."

"Okay, well, that's clearly not true, so." David steps away and goes to the kitchen.

The process of making tea is calming; he sets the electric kettle to boil on the counter and grabs a mug from the cabinet — Alexis gave it to Patrick at their bachelor party, and it says **#1 BROTHER** on it in glittery letters. He finds the sleepy-time tea, which is the actual brand Patrick buys, with the little bear in pajamas on the box, and dumps the bag unceremoniously into the mug, wrapping the little string around the handle. He pours the hot water and drops in a handful of ice so Patrick won't have to wait for it to cool.

Patrick lifts his head to accept the tea, and — it's not that David has never seen him cry before, but he's never _made_ him cry before, and he's never seen him this…undone? Twisted up. Seeing his red eyes twists _David_ up inside in the special way that only happens when Patrick is involved. 

David sits beside Patrick — his _fiance,_ he reminds himself harshly, someone he is very much going to marry — and runs a hand down his back. "I think it's safe to say that the last several weeks have been rough."

Patrick huffs a vaguely assenting sound into his tea; the steam is already smoothing out his face, drawing the red from his eyes to spread into warm pink all over.

"And neither of us has necessarily been the poster child of effective communication," David continues, rubbing tight little circles in the small of Patrick's back. Which is true: as prone as David is to hyperbole and drama, Patrick is equally prone to stewing in his feelings rather than speaking up. They've both improved by miles since the early days, but anyone can backslide under stress, David reasons. And the past few weeks have been nothing but stress: wedding planning on top of the store on top of Alexis' breakup and Stevie's little _Eat, Pray, Love_ personal journey to motel franchising. On top of trying to wrangle the million Brewers and various Brewer-adjacent cousins, including several on Marci's side, into travel accommodations, which David feels deserves its own separate category from wedding planning.

"I just need to know," Patrick says, voice thick and heavy and even, "that this will be enough for you. That you aren't going to spend the rest of your life wishing you had gone to New York."

David slides off the couch and crouches in front of Patrick, making himself small, meeting his eyes. "This is more than enough, honey. This life we've built blows New York off the map."

Patrick huffs into his mug again, almost smiling, and David smiles back at him, just a little. "I want to have a life with you. Expand the store a little, maybe. Buy a house. Adopt a cat or three. And I am going to make you visit my family in New York with me, and I'm sure you're going to make me do tourist bullshit, and we're going to go to every ridiculously large Brewer family gathering, and I am going to be happier than I've ever been."

Patrick finally lifts his head to give David a ghost of his best teasing face. "So…you've thought about buying a house?"

"Okay," David says, and stands, because this situation is shifting rapidly.

"You think about buying a house and adopting cats!" Patrick smiles, fully, and it's wet and sad but it's real and David smiles down at him.

"We're getting _married."_

Patrick rises and puts a hand on David's hip, carefully holding his mug to the side. "What are our three cats' names?"

"We are _not_ doing this."

"Tipsy? Oopsie? Lala?"

"Are those the Teletubbies?"

Patrick just smiles, tight-lipped, and shrugs, unrepentant.

David tilts his head back and sighs. "Sandra, Julia, and Meryl."

Patrick is laughing into a kiss on the side of David's neck, and on his cheek, big loud sloppy smooches that Patrick _knows_ tickle David and make him feel weird, and it makes him laugh too, the building bubble of tension and weirdness that's been growing in him for weeks finally dissolving.

"I can't wait to get cats with you, David," he growls against his neck.

"I can't wait to make flash cards to learn all your cousins' names."

Patrick bites his shoulder through his shirt, and David doesn't even care that it's fucking up his shirt. He doesn't care that he won't be living in New York. He cares about this, right here, and he can't wait to have it forever.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote 3/4 of a coda for this episode in a completely different direction, and this one was hard to reconcile, because I really don't think either of the boys was in the wrong, they were just missing signals.
> 
> Visit my tumblr at @fourgetregret or @loveburnsbrighter.


End file.
